Rainstorm
by Astrid
Summary: Post RENT-fic dealing with what might have happened to the characters left behind. Please read and review.
1. When It Rains, It Pours

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A/N: _Disclaimer, I don't own these characters, just the plot that I put them in. Read and review. If you all seem to like it, I'll post more. Flames are welcome and encouraged. Hey, everyone has an opinion right?_

It was wet. Little drops of rain clung to the blonde boys glasses as he stood quietly in the background of the collection of people, mostly clad in dark clothes and hidden under umbrellas. He didn't want an umbrella. He didn't want to be in this godforsaken suit. Not to mention this cemetery, town, state or country. He didn't want to be anywhere near any of these people. He just stood still, occasionally shifting the weight of his body from one foot to the other, his hands shoved in his pockets, his blue eyes searching the depths of the crowd. 

_I should be paying attention, I should be showing something to these people, something to remind them that I was his friend._ No. No, he couldn't do that. Couldn't let anything make his glasses wet but the rain. 

He felt around in his pocket and turned the guitar pic he found there over a few times. It calmed his already jittering, frazzled nerves and he let out a heavy sigh. 

"Does anyone else have anything to add?"

_I have everything to add._

Silence. The crowd dispersed, heading over towards the flower covered oak enclosure and left the boy and a few scarce others still standing. Separately. He watched as a thin, dark-skinned woman approached him, her usually wild curls tamed into a nice, respectable bun. 

"Mark...hey..." her soft, but aggressive voice spoke up as she stepped forward, her caramel eyes wet with what had once been silent tears. "Haven't seen you in awhile. How are you holding up?" 

He shrugged a little. "I'm holding up." His answer was calm, flat and without his usual faltering stutter or mumble. "How has it been treating you?" 

Mark Cohen watched helplessly as the woman before him, beautiful and strong, attempted to squeeze out a small smile. She was trying to comfort him. Her smile faded and she brought her hands to her face as a wave of tears exploded from within her. 

"Mimi..." He mumbled, opening his arms and wrapping them around her smaller frame as she sobbed into his shoulder. "Mimi, there was nothing we could do, he was sick. He was miserable, but it's over..." He could barely believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. It wasn't over, this endless strain of death would never be over. He had suffered a blow like this before, but for some reason he knew the ache wouldn't go away. The dent in him wouldn't reform.

Mimi Marquez regained her composure and stood on her own, Mark's careful arms releasing her and his hands burrowing back into his pockets. He studied her face and its smooth contours, his eyes almost breathing her in. So much had changed about her since last he saw her almost a year ago. Somehow the spunky flame she had was wavering, threatening to extinguish itself if she didn't regain something she had once had. Mark feared the only thing that kept her candle burning was lying in that oak casket covered with flowers.

"It's over..." She repeated his words, folding her arms across her chest and letting the rain hit her without swatting it away. She didn't care. The rain was just an afterthought to all of this. "I honestly didn't think it had much longer to last...did you?" Her searching brown eyes raised to meet his blue ones and something inside him twitched. Shifted. Wasn't the same.

"No..." he managed to spit out. Before he could continue, the rain pounded down in an appropriate thundering crescendo, and the two young pairs of eyes locked with each others again.

"Do you want to get out of here?" She asked, almost having to yell over the pouring rain. Mark nodded, looking to the coffin and then back to Mimi. 

"We can come back...plant the flowers and..." he rambled as they walked, dripping wet to Mark's small black Mazda. He fumbled in his pockets for the keys and let Mimi in, holding her door for her and closing it as soon as she had gotten safely inside. He sat beside her and started the car. The small dinging noise that sounded before he buckled his seatbelt snapped him out of his confused, muddled mood and prepared him to drive. To focus on something other than this suffocating death. 

His fingers wrapped around the wheel, he began to drive slowly out of the cemetery long after the procession had gone. They were headed back to the family's house. He was not. He couldn't face them, not his mother, not his sisters. He let out a sigh, water still dripping from his hair and down behind his glasses. They were taking the place of the tears that he knew should have been there.

"Are you hungry?" Mimi asked. " I don't think I want to go home right now..." Her voice was faded and low, tired and weak. He didn't know where he wanted to go, but he knew he didn't want to say no to Mimi. She was worse off than he was, she had more pain in her than he did. She had the right to be catered to and pampered.

She had the right to be loved. The only person who knew how to do that without flaw was dead. He made sure to remind himself of that as he drove onward.


	2. April Showers and Gone By May

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A/N: _Again, I don't own these characters. I apologize if this next scene is a little predictable to what will be my last chapter, but I'm no Shakespeare. Thanks for the reviews guys. I might wait a little longer than an afternoon to let you read the last chapter. ::laughs evilly:: Happy reading..._

The small cafe wasn't nearly as crowded as Mark expected it to be for a Friday afternoon. Stepping in was like stepping into the past. The times where he had been a regular in this place were far away from anything he was now. He had held the door for her and taken her coat; two newly acquired acts of chivalry. Mark had never been your typical gentleman. He had never quite known how. Now, as he sat across from her, her hair still dripping from the rain, her small frame still quietly shivering, he knew that she needed this. Someone to make sure she didn't do anything that someone else could do for her. At least for now.

Mark nursed his steaming black coffee as though it were a foreign substance. He never had really liked coffee. He was more of a tea kind of person. But what did people drink who were in mourning? Something black and strong. He would have preferred liquor of some sort, and from the look on Mimi's face she would have too. 

"So..." She spoke up, her head resting on the heel of her hand, a cigarette dangling from her slender fingers. "What have you been doing the past year?" She almost fleetingly let a small, playful smile escape, but suppressed it with a long drag on her cigarette.

Mark sighed, adjusting his small wire rimmed glasses. "Nothing sadly. I would have been better off not taking that offer in LA." He wanted to keep the details quiet. _She doesn't need to know everything that happened out there, _he told himself. "I only got a few offers for my film. Nothing spectacular."

"Did you sell? Did you premiere?" She seemed more eager to hear, leaning towards him, resting her slight arms on the table.

"No..." He muttered, looking back down at his coffee. "No, I didn't think it was a good idea. It would have been like selling my kid."

"You always look so deeply into things like that." She mentioned. Mark shrugged, stirring his drink, the clinking of the spoon somehow keeping him awake and attentive.

"He used to tell me that all the time." He looked up at her, and the locking of their eyes was inevitable. Again, Mark felt that shift. A lurching somewhere that he didn't recognize. Mimi's brown eyes growled and her apathetic look turned to bitter and hateful.

"Well, you don't have to worry about that anymore, do you..." She snapped scornfully, her deep, sultry voice replaced by someone's that Mark didn't recognize.

"No. I suppose I don't." He sighed, not wanting to appease her. He wanted to shake her and tell her that her lover may have been dead, but it wasn't the end of him. "You know, Mimi...Roger didn't want to go." His words were quiet, almost inaudible to anyone unless they had been giving the filmmaker their absolute attention.

"How would you know?" Mimi asked spitefully. "You just got here two months ago."

The words hit Mark like a slap across the face. He looked sharply up at Mimi, insulted by her condemnation of his decision to leave. He inhaled, leaning forward in his seat.

"What does that mean?" He asked calmly, searching her face for something to answer him.

"It means that you weren't here when he started getting sick. You left as soon as I got better, you were gone by May. I watched him deteriorate while you were whoring off your precious film. He could barely walk by the fourth of July. He was bedridden on Halloween. He couldn't come out of his room for Christmas. He was dying when you came back for New Years..." She accused, her hands shaking with every word.

"And he was dead by Easter." Mark shot back, angered now. "I know, Mimi. I know everything that happened to him. I came back in January, because that's when you decided to call me and tell me about him."

"Last I checked, the phone worked both ways, Mark. And you came back because you couldn't handle the guilt of staying there while he died. Not because you wanted to be with him as much as you could while he was still here. Who held his hand when he was dying, Mark? It wasn't you..." A tear spilled from her eye without a sound from her mouth. Mark forced himself to swallow hard before he spoke again.

"Mimi, I was there. I was there through it all, before you were. I was there for the drugs, the nights that he would wander around the streets until all hours and come home completely obliterated. I would throw out empty stashes and used needles so he wouldn't get something like the disease that killed him. I would check on him and make sure he was alive. I would shove *my* fingers down his throat when he took too much, Mimi. Don't talk to me about holding someone's hand when they're almost dead. I dealt with his withdrawal. I locked the door and barricaded him in while he swore at me and screamed at me and threatened me unless I let him out to get another high. I watched him sweat buckets in the middle of winter. I watched him throw up anything he tried to keep down because of those drugs, Mimi. I was there when April died. *I* found him in the bathroom with a straight edge razor more than once, because he wanted to be numb again, and the drugs weren't at his disposal, and neither was she. I may not be a saint, but don't fucking call me a bad friend for what I didn't do. I did all I could to keep that boy alive for as long as he could manage. I loved him just as much as you did." 

Mark inhaled, the flow of words stopping suddenly. He bit down on his tongue, stopping the rush of emotion before he could even comprehend what he had just said. He wanted to apologize, but he didn't owe it to her. He owed it to Roger.

"I didn't mean to leave him. I didn't know he was going to get sick." He slid his chair back. "I'm sorry. I'll go."

"No!" Mimi's voice echoed for a moment, silencing the small crowd. "No. You don't owe anything to me. Don't apologize to me, that just makes you a hypocrite, Mark. You're not sorry, I get it. But you owe it to Roger. You owe it to him to apologize."

"For what?" He asked, standing and almost towering over the still seated Mimi.

"For proving him wrong. He said you were numb, Mark, remember? After Angel's funeral. You *are* the one of us to survive. Do something about it. Do something for the ones of us who aren't going to make it another five years."

"Don't say that." Mark pleaded, his anger fading to a familiar desperate emotion.

"Don't ignore the truth. I'm dying too, Mark. So is Collins." She stood. "But Angel and Roger are gone. Do something for them, Mark." She paused, pulling her coat on. "No. Do something for us."


	3. Letting Go

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A/N:_ Okay so I lied. There will be another chapter (or two if I get another brilliant idea). So yeah, keep reading. I own nothing but the plot._

The loft had been so cold for mid-April. Mark hadn't bothered to turn the heat or electricity on while he was here. When he got that call in LA he knew that he had to come back, but wouldn't be home long. Roger had moved downstairs with Mimi as soon as he showed signs of not being able to take care of himself. Which Mark found funny. Roger could never take care of himself. Even when he was clean and healthy, he could barely dress himself. There would be times when Mark would come home to see piles of clothes scattered in random order around the loft. He always left jars open, and was the cause of many a strange smell in their little home.

Mark sat on the ratty couch, staring blankly at an old magazine. Not reading it, but trying to look like he was doing something normal, should someone come visit. The pages were limp and wet, probably from being used to catch a leak or something. They were always thinking of creative ways to fix up the loft. Pillows in the windows to stop the drafts from blowing in...

No. He wouldn't remember. He couldn't let himself remember, because then he would almost be admitting that it actually happened. But he couldn't help it! Roger had been his best friend, his companion, his advice-giving therapist for so many years. So the advice had been less than stellar. Hell, Roger's advice usually consisted of him telling Mark to "bust some heads" whenever he was angry, but it was advice none the less. 

The silence was getting to him. It was allowing him to think, and he didn't want to think about anything ever again. What could he do? What would Roger do?

Mark stood and marched to the small kitchen, which was still stocked with plates and glasses, coffee mugs and silverware. He reached up into one of the shoddy cabinets and pulled out the first thing his fingers fell on. A black porcelain mug. Roger's mug. Mark frowned, holding it, inspecting it like it was some foreign specimen he had discovered.

And then he just let go.

The mug flew from his hands as he let his fingers uncurl from the handle, reflecting a few spots of light before it hit the hardwood. Shattered. The noise was beautiful, a tinkling of cheap plaster spreading into a crash of cymbals as the little shards spread across the floor like a liquid spill.

He was pathetic. So desperate to quell the silence that he dropped a mug, just to hear it break. What was he doing? He didn't know and he didn't care. He just walked away from the wreckage and towards Roger's old room. 

__

Mark, you know this is a bad idea, don't go in there, there's nothing for you in there, they didn't move his stuff, just DON'T go in there. His thoughts were continuous and flowing, not fragmented and full speed as usual. Something inside of him was slowing down, causing everything around him to slow down. He took what seemed like hours to actually pull the door to Roger's room open and step inside.

Nothing had changed. Roger's bed was still unmade and clothes were piled high on top of it. A few empty bags of Doritos and chips lay scattered on the floor, near the garbage, but not exactly in it. Pictures and posters covered the walls. Mark looked up to the huge Jim Morrison blanket that Roger had hung above his bed, and then to the other posters for different bands. He didn't look at the pictures. That would come later. Now was a time for action.

He flipped the blankets that hung over the side of the bed up and onto it, crouching down and sticking his arm under the bed. He felt around for a moment before pulling out the long, black guitar case he had been looking for. Sitting back on the floor, he inspected the sticker covered case, running his fingers over the latches and flicking them open with a muffled clicking noise. He pulled out the monstrous Fender and examined it quickly.

And then he ran his fingers across the strings. He knew something was sharp or flat, but he couldn't place what. Was it the D? Or the F string? Was there even a D string or an F string? He knew nothing about guitars, just that this one was somehow connected to his best friend. Somehow this was the link back to him.

But Mark wanted to hear it being played, and he couldn't do it. Mark wanted to hear the persistent notes that kept him up at night and woke him in the morning. The smooth arpeggios and grunting power chords that fueled his songs. He didn't know how Roger made those notes out of this mix of wood and plastic and metal, and that made him angry. 

He put the guitar back with less care than he should have and stood. His fists clenched, his jaw set...he wanted to break something else. The guitar? No. A window? No, too cold...

"What do you want me to do!?" He called out to no one in particular. He was tired. Weak. Angry. Slamming the door to Roger's room behind him, he retreated, collapsing on the couch and falling into a restless, dreamless sleep


	4. I Have a Photograph, They're All That's ...

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A/N:_ So here it is, the second to last chapter. I'm loving the reviews you guys are giving me, so I've prolonged it from its original three, to five now. Again, I own nada. Zilch. Zip. Enjoy!_

"So what did you want us all here for?" Maureen Johnson asked, sitting on the floor of Mimi's apartment. Beside her sat Joanne, her on-again-off-again love interest and close friend of Mark's. Mimi sat above them on the couch, and next to her was Tom Collins, looking as though he knew exactly what was going on.

"Well..." Mark called from the other room, sounding as though he was struggling with something. "I don't know...I just found some old stuff and wanted to go through it before I fly back out to California tomorrow." 

"What kind of stuff?" Collins questioned, peering in to see if he could spy the blonde boy. Mark emerged soon after, carrying a box of envelopes and folders, plopping it down and sitting by it. He reached in and picked up an envelope, spilling its contents on the floor. Out came a flood of pictures and a few papers.

"This kind of stuff. Roger had it all stowed away in the back of his closet. I figured we could, you know, sort out some stuff we want." He began flipping through pictures and tossing a few aside.

Maureen and Joanne quickly dug in as well, Collins and Mimi taking a little longer to follow suit. After a moment of contemplation, Mark held up a photo.

"Do you remember this?" He asked. "This was the day of the search for that taxi..." Laughing to himself, he examined the shot of Roger holding a paper with what seemed to be a license plate number.

"That taxi had a LEG hanging out of the trunk, I swear to God!" Maureen laughed. "I don't care if it was a Halloween prop or not, there was a LEG in that taxi!"

"I still think you made it up so we'd have something to amuse ourselves with for the day." Mark accused jokingly. 

"I did NOT." She said taking the picture and placing it beside her. She pulled out another and laughed. "There's always the famous, 'No, you idiot' picture..." Fanning the picture at Mark, he snatched it away.   
"What's that supposed to mean?" Mimi asked. "I think that was before my time..."

"It was..." Mark inhaled. "I asked Roger a question about his guitar...what was it again?" He looked to Maureen and Collins for an answer.

"I think you asked if you could glue a broken string back together." Collins replied. "And then Roger just gave you this priceless look, and I had to take a picture." He held up the picture of Mark looking inquisitive, and Roger giving a glare that could have melted the ice caps.

"So I was young and naive..." Mark sighed.

"Your mother's young and naive!" Maureen snapped, giggling. Mark glared at her.

"Don't start that again. I weaned Roger off of the 'your mother' comebacks two weeks after we moved in here because it came out of his mouth every two minutes." He began mocking conversation. "Roger, we need more eggs...your mother needs more eggs! Roger, do you have my t-shirt? Your mother has my t-shirt. It really was sickening..." Mark grumbled. "But some of them were really funny. Like when I told him he needed a shower, and he came back with the fact that my mother needed to shower. Some of them were golden."

"Mark...that wasn't funny at all, actually..." Mimi said, raising an eyebrow.

"Well...shut up, you had to be there." He let a smile crack his rather stony face and went back to surfing through the box.

"Do you remember when Roger broke that window?" Collins asked, leaning forward and snatching a few pictures up.

"I remember I wanted to kill him. It was the middle of winter and we had this gaping hole in our wall. I think I caught frostbite a few times." Mark laughed in response.

"Or that time where he was stinking drunk..." Maureen chimed.

"Which time?" Mimi laughed. "That boy was always pounding _something _down."

"The time he was drunk and insisted that Mark let him try on some of his clothes." Maureen fell into a heap of laughter, joined by Joanne.

"That must have been a sight." Joanne grinned. "Somehow I can't picture it."

"It was so hysterical. Mark, why did you let him?" Mimi said, crouching on the floor.

"I must have been a little drunk myself. Besides, you know how persistent and stubborn Roger was when he was sober. Add alcohol to that and he gets downright whiny!" The blonde answered, tossing Mimi a few pictures.

"But you should have seen him, he came out in Mark's little Pulp Fiction t-shirt and this pair of awful stonewashed jeans that must have been from 1987--" she was cut off by her own laughter.

"Yeah yeah, it was funny because it was about 20 sizes too small..." Mark rolled his eyes. "It was an inadvertent jibe at my...uh..."

"Scrawniness?" Joanne teased. Mark stuck out his tongue.

"But despite all the teasing and roughhousing and utter beatings that those boys put each other through, Roger and Mark got along pretty well." Collins said. "I just remember one morning, Mark was sleeping late because he had been up all night working on something, and Roger got this clever idea to wake him up at about...7:30. So how does he wake him up? He runs into Mark's room screaming and just leaps onto his bed and proceeds to beat the shit out of him." Collins leaned over to Mimi and mimed the actions that Roger took.

"That wasn't funny! I had bruises after that, I thought someone had broken into our loft!" Mark grinned a little.

"I can picture that..." Mimi said, snatching a few more pictures and putting them into her pile. "Thank you for these, Mark." She smiled, knowingly.

"No problem." He answered, grinning down at a picture that was all his own.


	5. Free From The Life That You Knew

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A/N: _Last chapter, finally. Hope you all enjoyed this. Read and review please._

The rain still hadn't faded from Roger's funeral, and Mark sat casually in the waiting room of the airport watching as the little droplets ran races down the window beside him. Mimi sat beside him, noticing something new about him. Around his neck was a small chain, attached to which was a small, black guitar pic that she recognized as Roger's. He was clad in a black turtleneck sweater, even though it wasn't all that cold for spring. Mimi sighed heavily. He hadn't spoken since they arrived, just stared meekly out the window at the falling rain.

"So what's there for you in California?" She asked quietly. "I mean, something must be pulling you back, right? Working on another film?" She playfully touched his arm.

"A girl." He said flatly, leaning his head on his hand, never taking his eyes off of the window. "And all my stuff is there too..." He joked lightly, smiling to himself.

"What kind of girl?" Mimi asked, intrigued. Mark shrugged.

"The right kind." He answered blankly, obviously reluctant to share any details with her. Mimi nodded, understanding. Mark's new life in California was just that. His. Something he wasn't about to share with anyone else. He was putting this all behind him, but not forgetting. He was letting go, and Mimi wasn't about to stop him.

"I'm sure Roger's thrilled." She replied. Mark turned finally, looking at her and smiling weakly.

"Yeah, she's the kind of person he would have gotten along with." His voice shook. Reaching over quietly, Mimi took his hand and played comfortingly with his fingers.

"It's okay to be upset, Mark. You don't have to put up these stony appearances for us anymore. No one is here that needs you to be strong for them." Mark pulled his hand away.

"No, Roger wouldn't have wanted me to be upset. If I had done anything...shown anything to anyone...he would have said I was making myself look like an ass. He would have told me to cut the dramatics out." He began chewing nervously on his fingernail, a habit that both he and Roger had shared. 

"But he isn't here to tell you that, Mark." Mimi leaned in closer to him. "He's gone, and you know that. I know that. You just have to let that hit you whatever way it's going to hit you. Whether it's now, here in this airport, or 20 years from now when you have a wife and kids to worry about, it's going to catch up with you. You can only outrun it for so long. Guitar pics and pictures aren't going to let you relive your times with Roger. For Christ's sake, Mark, I can see it in you, just screaming to be recognized. You've been hiding from any sort of pain, or sadness, or hurt since I met you, why? Why do you do it to yourself?" 

"Because it's easier." He answered, his voice still wavering. "It's easier to try and forget about it than it is to deal with things. It's why I film, it's why Roger used, it's why he played music. To escape. It feels so much better at the moment, it feels like the right thing to do."

"But you know it isn't." Mimi lended.

"I know it isn't." Mark perked up as the announcer called his flight number. "That's me." He stood, hoisting his backpack on and leaving the other bags at his feet. Mimi stood, embracing him tightly and lovingly, planting a small kiss on his cheek.

"Promise me you'll get through this. Promise me that you won't forget him." She said, her face buried in Mark's shoulder. Mark nodded.

"I won't forget him." His eyes locked with hers, and there was that lurching inside him. That shift that he hadn't recognized before, but now made perfect sense. A lump formed in his throat. His hands began to shake. A solitary silent tear slid down his cheek. "I can't forget him."

Mimi wiped away the tear with a steady hand. "Now go get on your plane."

Mark nodded, composing himself quickly, picking up his bags and trudging willfully back to a life he had created for himself and no one else. Except maybe to prove to his best friend that he was surviving.


End file.
